A News Blog

Keeping you in the know in the world of politics

BEE BRANCH | After watching Libyan leader/madman Moammar Gadhafi vow not to leave his country and to die as a “martyr” as revolution rages in his north African country, I am beginning to think that unlike Egypt and Tunisia, this one ends in a military coup. That is, unless Gadhafi chickens out and flees to Venezuela or some other country and seeks refuge from some other strongman. His bizarre (although after all these years that word is rather redundant by now) rant this morning cast… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA |With the big vote in Tuscaloosa coming tomorrow on whether alcohol can be sold on Sunday, I thought you might be interested in the perspective of the man, who went by”Straw Sucker,” and published the letter above. It is from the Brattleboro, Vermont, Semi Weekly Eagle newspaper and was printed in 1847. Interpret it as you see fit, but I can’t see it changing any minds one way or the other going into Tuesday municipal election. It was discovered… Read More »

BEE BRANCH | On MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Mathews, they are actually debating whether New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s ample girth would be a positive or a negative on the campaign trail against President Barack Obama. Seriously. Jonathan Alter seems to think being a fattie would help him (why, he doesn’t say), while Chris is skeptical, although he does paint a rather unflattering mental picture of Christie lumbering on stage at the debates to face the “skinny” Barack Obama.… Read More »

BEE BRANCH | CPAC, that annual convention of conservative wingnuts in Washington, D.C. ended this weekend with a straw poll in which for the second straight year, Texas Libertarian-turned-Republican Ron Paul came out on top. Paul, who has about as much chance of getting elected president as, say, Donald Trump, claimed victory in his own myopic way and, speaking of Trump, who also spoke at the confab, took a shot at him this morning when Trump pointed out that Paul… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | Eleven days ago, as the crowds began to grow in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt demanding the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, the county’s virtual dictator for 30 years, I pondered whether or not a bloodless military coup, in which the leaders of the Army the United States has supported for years would just go to the 82-year-old strongman, tell him his time is up and see to it he has safe transport out of town. Well, that appears to… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | While the uprising in Egypt, the world’s 15th largest nation and the only thing Israel has resembling a friend in the Middle East, is rightfully the biggest story of rebellion in the world, it is by far not the only one. And it certainly wasn’t the first in this new era of dissent in the area, which includes North Africa, of which Egypt is a part. In December of last year in something they are calling the… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | Doug Gibler, an associate professor of political science specializing in international conflict and state development, dropped by The Tuscaloosa News this morning to discuss the revolt in Egypt and the rest of the region. [brightcove 776348607001] But things are moving so fast over there I don’t know how much of our shared ruminations will be valid for very long. Wednesday was, of course, a terrible day in Cairo with President Hosni Mubarak unleashing the hounds (actually, the camels… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | So apparently the ceremony by which formerly Democratic Tuscaloosa County Sheriff Ted Sexton was transformed into a Republican before an appreciative crowd of some 60 people at Wentzell’s Oyster House in Northport Monday was not an isolated event. Seems the Alabama GOP had nine more such miraclous transformation, albeit, all in Covington County in south Alabama (where I thought all the elected office holders were probably already Republican anyway). For the record, the Covington County switchers are District Judge Trippy McGuire;… Read More »